Born in 1980, more questions than answers

What a Shame…

I don’t know what is wrong with me and I don’t know what to write.

I know I have to write. Something is seething in me and it needs ejecting…

What?

Why am I a prude? Some woman I don’t even know sharing vivid details of her sex life on an internet forum that is NOT about sex made me feel….annoyed. Kind of violated. ‘Don’t describe to me what it wouldn’t be appropriate for me to see’, I tell friends. Or a least, I want to tell friends. I do not want to know what they do in bed: positions, noises, toys. I have a keen sense of privacy. More importantly I feel awkward for the partner who isn’t doing the telling; the unwitting star of pornographic literature for an audience, some of whom he or she might know.

Yet jostling alongside this justifiable privacy concern, I feel smug. Smug that I am more discreet, streamlined and dignified. I will never describe to you my adventures with my girlfriend in bed. I am better than that.

What?

I try hard to dig and face what makes me uncomfortable. When I hear descriptions of my friends’ sex lives, I suppose I feel jealous. Not the sex lives themselves (mine’s pretty great, I’ll tell you that much without telling you what goes where) but their ease in talking about it. It’s only natural.

What?

I wouldn’t have known, growing up, that sex was natural. Like for many people of my generation, it was never discussed in our house. I never even saw my parents kissing. Sex was referred to as ‘that’ by my mother, directly referred to even recently as ‘boys’ stuff’. I was definitely encouraged to be sexy, though, even if it was never called that. I think my mother felt it reflected well on her if boys were interested in me. They were. And I went along with it.

What?

Until I didn’t. I came out as a lesbian during the ages of 33-35 (it ain’t a one-time thing). That journey is described in patches on my other posts. My mother’s reaction was utterly horrendous. We now have surface harmony and she even asks questions about my girlfriend but that took time, the key wordates here being *surface*. I think underneath, my mother hates it. Or at least feels she should hate it, catching herself being okay with it at times then fighting to reassert her perceived ‘authority’ over me. It’s a process and a struggle. Why does she hate it? For her generation, the definition of homosexuality is sexual deviance, and her daughter is now a dirty one.

What?

Am I dirty? Do I believe I am dirty? Hell no. I am cleaner and clearer than ever and my loving relationship with my girlfriend can only add to that.

But I think, no I know, that somewhere deep inside, I carry a relic of my mother’s own distaste, disgust and shame about the mere idea of sex as an enjoyable pursuit. This provokes a reaction in me when I am around those who share all ‘shamelessly’. Thankfully I am not blocked in the actual act, though relaxing and opening a little more would do me no harm.